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MRAK Almanac: Mystery of the Franklin Expedition; Noel Wien’s birthday

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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By KOBE RIZK

The MRAK Almanac is your place for political, cultural, and civic events, events where you’ll meet political leaders or, if you are interested in getting to know your state, these are great places to meet conservative- and moderate-leaning Alaskans.

General inquiry: Does it seem like dandelions are especially hardy this year? Or is the word invasive? We are told by one local beekeeper that this seems to be a bumper crop year for the wandering weeds.

IN THE LEGISLATURE: House gavels in at 10:30 am, Senate gavels in at 11 am.

Alaska Daylight Report:

Today is June 7, the 158th day of 2019. Below is the amount of daylight anticipated today by several Alaskan communities:

  • Juneau will clock in with 18 hours 2 minutes of daylight.
  • Anchorage will see an hour more, with 19 hours 2 minutes of daylight.
  • Fairbanks will receive a whopping 21 hours 9 minutes of daylight.
  • In Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), the sun will shine all day.
  • Summer solstice (the year’s longest day) will take place in exactly two weeks, on June 21, 2019.

6/7: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service management officials for the Chignik area will hold a subsistence fishing stakeholder meeting at 4 pm. The purpose of the meeting is to provide all interested parties with an opportunity to discuss the upcoming salmon season in Chignik with federal Fish and Wildlife Staff. More information here.

6/7: Alaska Public Offices Commission provides group training 12-2 pm. Check details here.

6/7: The Alaska State Board of Education & Early Development will hold public testimony beginning at 9:10 am. The State Board oversees the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development and supervises the Commissioner. Those wishing to testify to the board can either show up to the board’s meeting in Anchorage or call in via telephone. Visit this link for details.

6/7: The Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct will hold their quarterly meeting in Anchorage. The public portion of the meeting will commence at 9:45 am and end at 10:30 am, when the commission will enter executive session. More information here.

6/7: Opening of the Anchorage Museum’s new exhibit titled “Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition”. The exhibit showcases over two-hundred artifacts associated with the lost ship that departed London in 1845 and was never heard from or seen again. That is, until the two sunken ships were re-discovered in 2014 and 2016. $5 gate fee plus museum admission. Free for museum members.

6/7: First Friday Spring Garden Party at Risse Greenhouse between Fairbanks and Chena Hot Springs. Free to attend, and the greenhouses will be scattered with over twenty local artists and live musicians. Runs from 5 – 9 pm.

6/7: Interior Alaska GOP will host their weekly luncheon at Denny’s in Fairbanks beginning at 11:30 am. The guest will be Fairbanks advertising consultant Steve Neumuth speaking about “The Art of Campaigning”. All are welcome.

6/7: Deadline to enter in the Kodiak Island Borough’s Junk Vehicle Disposal Lottery. One hundred lucky lottery contestants will receive free removal of one junk vehicle from their property, courtesy of the borough’s Community Development Department. Instructions for entry at this link.

6/7: June Alaska Aviators Forum at the Aviator Hotel in Anchorage. This month’s edition of the forum will feature Bert Hanson, Chief Pilot of the Iditarod Air Force. Bert will speak about his 36 years serving as the “eyes in the sky” for the world’s most famous sled dog race. Begins at 7 pm, more details here.

6/7: Wasilla Music in the Park 2019, the first of four nights in June in which the Wasilla community will come together at Wonderland Park to enjoy an evening of live music, delicious food vendors, and all-around family fun. Admission to the event is free, visit this link for details.

6/7: Deadline to submit photos to Senator Dan Sullivan’s Frontier in Focus photo contest. Send photos of your best Alaskan summer scenery to Senator Sullivan at [email protected].

6/8: Kenai Air Fair & Fun Flight. Morning will begin with breakfast at the Soldotna Airport, with a BBQ at noon in Kenai. This event will also feature live music and a military appreciation event. All participating aircraft must be registered; more information here.

6/8: Alaska Run for Women in Anchorage to support breast cancer awareness. Both a one-mile and five-mile race will take place. Visit here for more information and to register.

6/8: Nascar/Inex races at Alaska Raceway. Doors open at 3 pm. Info here.

6/9: Bulldog Memorial Ride hosted by Denali Harley-Davidson in Wasilla. Begins at 11 am, further details at the Facebook page here.

6/7-6/9: The Palmer Chamber of Commerce will hold their annual Colony Days celebration to celebrate the region’s rich history. The three-day long festivities include a parade, axe throwing competitions, and block parties downtown. There will also be plenty of local food and crafts available for purchase, visit here for a detailed schedule of the celebration.

6/7-6/9: Kenai & Soldotna will celebrate the lifeblood waterway of their communities in the annual Kenai River Festival. This weekend festival surrounding the Kenai River will take place at Soldotna Creek Park, and include live music, various food vendors, and an artisan market. Click here for more detailed information about the weekend’s events.

6/7-6/9: 2019 Special Olympics Alaska Summer Games. Over three hundred athletes will compete in five different summer sports. Come cheer them on and support a good cause. Click here for detailed location information for each sport.

Alaska History Archive:

June 7, 1913: At 20 years old, Walter Harper became the first person to ever reach the summit of Denali, spending about ninety minutes atop North America’s highest peak. Harper, an Athabaskan, had been invited to summit the mountain in early 1913 by British priest Hudson Stuck. The expedition left Nenana (via dog team) on March 17, 1913, summited on June 7, and returned on June 20, three months later. Soon after getting married, Harper tragically died in a southeast Alaska ship wreck at age 25.

June 8, 1899: 120 years since Noel Wien, Alaska aviation pioneer and founder of Wien Air Alaska, was born in Wisconsin. Among many other first-time records, Noel Wien was the first to fly from Fairbanks to Seattle, the first to fly across the Bering Strait, and the first to fly north of the Arctic Circle. Dubbed “the father of Alaska bush flying”, Wien was named Alaskan of the Year in 1975 and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2010. Noel Wien passed away in 1977 at seventy-eight years old.

‘Won’t back down’ Dunleavy has dividend revival in valley

Suzanne Downing
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‘Won’t back down’ Dunleavy has dividend revival in valley

Gov. Michael Dunleavy entered the rally this evening in Wasilla to the iconic Tom Petty song blasting out from speakers, “I won’t Back Down.”

“You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.”

About 300 residents from around Southcentral Alaska loved it, and cheered him into the room like a rock star. They came from as far away as Kenai to support him and his effort to protect their Permanent Fund dividends.

The song and the crowd made a statement: For them, the Permanent Fund dividend should be paid according to the statutory formula, and that is a non-negotiable item.

“And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down … Gonna stand my ground.”

Earlier in the day in Juneau, senators opposing the $3,000 dividend tried to force the Senate to revote on the PFD bill in front of them, but Sen. Shelley Hughes of the Mat-Su put a “call on the Senate,” and with members not showing up, the body eventually adjourned. It was parliamentary politics at play, as the Senate is split on whether the dividend should be the full $3,000 or should be the $1,600 that some lawmakers feel is “palatable enough” to the public.

In Wasilla, where the next special session will be held, any reduction from the statutory amount was not a palatable with the crowd at Everett’s, the lakeside venue where Dunleavy held his Restore the PFD rally.

“Well I know what’s right. I got just one life. In a world that keeps on pushin’ me ’round. But I’ll stand my ground.”

Many of Dunleavy’s remarks were similar to his campaign promises when he ran for governor, and indeed, it was his stance on the dividend that won him overwhelming support in November. This was a theme he was well-versed in, something he has talked about hundreds of times before, and at different town hall meetings across the state. And this was a crowd that clearly loves him.

Dunleavy urged those in attendance to not only call and write to those legislators who support the full dividend, and thank them, but to be sure to contact those who do not support the current statutory formula.

“The PFD is the canary in the mine,” he said. Once lawmakers start fooling around with the formula, which is set in statute, then it is only a matter of time. Later he told reporters that if the statute needs to be changed, then the Legislature should change it. But for now, he said, “Follow the Law.”

And he also reminded them, albeit he was preaching to the choir, that if the dividend is not paid in full, Alaskans will likely start a ballot initiative to take it to the vote of the people.

“Our framers (of the constitution) said you are the vanguard to keep in check rogue legislators,” Dunleavy said. “If you aren’t involved at the front end of this, you will be involved at the end.”

Several times during his remarks the crowd burst out in spontaneous cheering. There were no counter-protesters and security was light.

“Let’s work on this thing together,” Dunleavy said.

It appears that the governor has every intention of calling the Legislature into session in Wasilla, and if nothing else, the footage from tonight was staged to give the Legislature a sense of the enthusiasm of the people in the Valley for being part of the conversation.

‘Dark money’ special interests wage war on Pebble Mine

Suzanne Downing
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‘Dark money’ special interests wage war on Pebble Mine

By HAYDEN LUDWIG
CAPITAL RESEARCH CENTER

There’s no shortage of wealthy environmentalist groups angling to keep Alaska from making use of its natural resources, usually by exploiting fears of pollution from the proposed Pebble mine, a critical copper and gold mine that promises to restore America’s independence from foreign strategic minerals.

Take SalmonState, a supposedly home-grown nonprofit that claims Alaska’s “salmon habitat is under threat” from the construction of Pebble Mine and wants to shut it down. SalmonState runs its scare campaign through the website Save Bristol Bay, where it claims “Pebble mine threatens one of the world’s last great fisheries” while soliciting donations from concerned observers.

But SalmonState isn’t local, nor is it even a nonprofit—in fact, the group doesn’t hold board meetings or own so much as a pen.

That’s because SalmonState isn’t a real nonprofit—it’s a front for the left-wing New Venture Fund, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Washington, D.C. that functions as a Left-wing mega-funder. Donations to SalmonState in reality go to the New Venture Fund—something the group’s website fails to mention.

Together with its three “sister” nonprofits, the New Venture Fund forms a massive “dark money” network housed in the D.C. headquarters of Arabella Advisors, a for-profit philanthropy consulting firm created by ex-Clinton administration staffer Eric Kessler.

And Arabella’s empire is dark. Between 2013 and 2017, its four interlocking nonprofits brought in a staggering $1.6 billion—largely from untraceable donors and major foundations on the Left, including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations.

Arabella uses that cash to spawn hundreds of “pop-up” groups just like SalmonState—websites designed to look like fully-fledged nonprofits, when in fact they’re little more than a line-item on a budget. These groups in turn attack conservatives on every issue ranging from judicial nominations to abortion-on-demand to the environment—and they’re rarely identified as fronts for Arabella.

But Arabella also uses its “dark money” to finance special interests outside of Washington, D.C. Case-in-point: the Alaska Center, an eco-activist group which wants you to know that “Alaskans deserve a fair process” when it comes to Pebble, “not one hijacked by D.C. lobbyists and foreign companies.”

That’s rich coming from a group whose top donors include some of the Left’s biggest and darkest funders.

By its own admission, the Alaska Center’s top three donors are the Sixteen Thirty Fund (Arabella’s lobbying shop), the Tides Advocacy Fund, and the League of Conservation Voters—all D.C.-based “dark money” advocacy groups that fund the activist groups behind the eco-Left’s increasingly radical agenda at the expense of the everyday Americans who benefit from cheap energy and abundant minerals.

Altogether, these three mega-funders spent nearly $70 million in 2016, according to their latest IRS filings.

The Alaska Center used its “dark money” to pay for a whopping 158 Facebook ads between July 2018 and March 2019. Many of those ads urged users to oppose the Pebble project and vote for left-wing candidates in the state legislature and in municipal districts.

The Alaska Center also supports an economy-killing carbon tax along the lines of the Canadian carbon tax passed last summer, which is expected to burden families with as much as $1,120 in added annual energy costs in certain parts of the country—the kinds of extremist policies favored by the Alaska Center’s biggest donors in Washington, D.C.

The Tides Advocacy Fund often goes by “The Advocacy Fund,” a name it adopted in 2010 perhaps in order to distance itself from its infamous “sister” group. That’s because Tides Advocacy is the lobbying arm of the Tides Foundation, a well-connected mega-funder that uses grants from numerous major foundations to incubate dozens of left-wing activist groups.

It’s massive, too. Altogether, Tides’ nonprofit network spent a staggering $3.1 billion between 2007 and 2017, much of which went to lobbying work.

Yet the Tides Advocacy Fund’s activism pales in comparison to the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental funder that’s been called a “’dark money’ heavyweight” by the left-leaning Center for Public Integrity—despite endorsing and donating nearly $140,000 to the 2018 reelection campaign of Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democrat whose biggest bugbear is so-called “dark money.”

The LCV is a perpetual enemy of oil and natural gas drilling. When Congress voted to lift the 40-year ban on oil exports in 2016, the group railed against the “radical leadership” of the Republican House majority, accusing them of being “more concerned with lining the pockets of Big Oil than standing up for American families.”

The LCV had no problem endorsing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s destructive Green New Deal in February—the resolution which the far-left Green Party estimates could cost between $700 billion and $1 trillion annually.

But the Alaska Center has one thing right: Alaskans do deserve a fair political process, one untainted by professional activists and their special interest friends in Washington, D.C.

And they’ll get one—by ignoring SalmonState, the Alaska Center, and its leftist funders.

Hayden Ludwig is an Investigative Researcher at Capital Research Center. He is a native of Orange County, California, and a graduate of Sonoma State University.

Editor’s note: Save Bristol Bay is a joint campaign of Trout Unlimited and SalmonState which financially benefits Trout Unlimited.

Alaska Raw, Part 2: How not to land a plane

Suzanne Downing
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Alaska Raw, Part 2: How not to land a plane

EXCLUSIVE SERIALIZED TRUE ADVENTURE FOR MUST READ ALASKA READERS

(Editor’s note: Must Read Alaska presents a Fathers Day special for readers. Scroll down to catch up on Part 1 of Alaska Raw, by Bob Lacher. Chapter 1 is running in serial format through Fathers Day. You can get a copy of the book through the link below. Meanwhile, continue reading Chapter 1 with Must Read Alaska. The next installment is June 8.)

When we last left Bob Lacher, his father and Frank, they had made it in their small airplanes to the coast near King Salmon and were headed south to the Aleutians to beach-comb and find a big caribou….

We pushed on down the coast taking it all in, straining our vision onto the beach, moving past in relative slow motion to hopefully detect a whale vertebrae or skull or a walrus carcass.

Wind was still fairly brisk coming onshore at about 30 and causing a heavy crabbing attitude of the planes to keep them flying straight down the beach.

Bob Lacher

Sitting in the pilot seat the view straight ahead in the cockpit appeared to be about a 35 degree angle heading hard out to sea, when in fact the path of travel was straight down the beach. It was an oddly cocked but steady and predictable gait that had your vision focused continually through the left window with a crooked neck.

Far ahead I started to make out another of the large chunks of tundra and dirt bluff sections that periodically break off the shore bank and are pushed by the tides and wave action to the middle of the beach. From a half mile away, the size of a small car, they often look like a potential walrus carcass, same size, same color, same profile, which is to say a lifeless brown blob. One can hope. After approaching and then passing many of the giant teasing dirt mounds, half buried in the sand, disturbed only by the breaking surf, I tried to continue to pay attention.

The one coming up was unusual in a telling way. An eagle lifted off of it as our aircraft got nearer. An eagle is not interested in dirt for dinner. It was a great looking walrus carcass!

As I zipped by at 65 miles an hour I could look down and see part of one ivory tusk. Bingo! I banked the plane up on one wing and came around for another look. Frank and my father dropped in behind and followed my pattern around.

As we turned the wind became a quartering tail instead of quartering head. The downwind run had the aircraft going about 95 or 100 MPH, too fast to see detail of what the beast really had for tusks and if it  was worth risking a beach landing in the crosswind. The quartering upwind passes were where we got a decent look, making several sweeps around it to finally decide we were going in.

I set up full flaps and attached my vision to a section of sand that pointed as correctly into the wind as I could get and not risk an overrun into the surf if I could not get stopped on the steeply sloped sand.

The first section of the landing zone sloped somewhat less for perhaps 200 feet, while the remaining 200 feet was heading down the bank at a stiffer 15 degree slope, terminating in the crashing waves… if you somehow failed to get it stopped in time. There were rocks at one end and a couple of root balls blocking the other which forced the angled landing headed toward the water. It was not great, but with the quartering headwind component it should have been a pretty good bet to get it done in the first two hundred feet.

I dropped a wing low on the windward side, slipping and crabbing the bird down toward the spot of sand I wanted to hit. Slowed to the limit of stall, I made first contact with the windward side tire.

In a single, coordinated, fluid motion I immediately kicked the tail up wind and fully straight to my direction of landing, chopped the throttle to zero, dumped all the flaps, and smashed all of the brakes the sand would allow. I was stopped in the first 200 feet. I pulled forward out of the way and shut down. It was Frank’s turn.

My wingman circled a few more times to see just what the zone looked like with a plane parked on it. This is a good visual reference where there may be no other. It’s a way to put distances and angles and slopes in perspective. The second guy in usually has the easier time of it. It’s mental if nothing else.

Frank lined up just as I had and descended toward the sandy sweet spot well marked by my first tire impact. He had been flying in that same crosswind for the last two hundred miles so that was no issue. He just needed to be right on his toes, and to slow the airplane up well, work the left rudder to the firewall when called for…then once everything is squared away and looking good, to get on the brakes hard before the salt water did the braking for you.

There was nothing to it, especially for Frank who had thousands of flight hours and a long career as an Air Force aviator. Frank’s approach looked great. I could see both him and my father sitting side by side, eyes wide open, locked in on the ground they soon wished to be walking on. The crab angle looked good, the appropriate wing tipped into  the wind perfectly.  Flaps at full, steady…steady… and…contact.

The touchdown was nice and slow, perhaps 45 mph. Then, for some reason, Frank thought he was done with that particular landing. He thought he could relax, that with all those perfectly made moves during the approach…that it was a sure thing. His mind may have already moved on to the grand prize, the walrus, the ivory booty, or maybe the stories of harvesting it that he would tell his grandchildren.

The Maul settled in perfectly, spot on and with both wheels initially pointing directly down the strip.

At this point is exactly when the sharp wind blowing from your right will want to push your tail hard left, thereby pointing your nose at the breaking waves coming up fast on your right. It is at this point that you also must jam the left rudder to the floor with your boot with roughly the same determination and full commitment that it takes to kill a crocodile by stomping on its neck.

And if that crocodile doesn’t die under your boot, you stomp a bunch of left brake to help out the left rudder. You force everything the airplane will do to make the nose go left and stay out of the water, and you do it instantly. You do it by pure reflex.

As I watched the beginning of a perfect touchdown I thought it odd that Frank allowed the tail to swing with the wind a little wide, then….wider. He was allowing the plane to roll out as though there was no crosswind. The jack boot to the left rudder never came.

It looked like things might get salty.

The airship was headed for the water. This was not at all amusing, mostly since my father was at some risk, being over 70 and unable to swim a lick. My dad, like many Alaskans who have never learned to swim because it’s so damn cold here all the time, is not a big fan of ocean water. Moreover, he has only one hand, which is paired with a much less handy stump due to an electrical accident that happened in his mid- thirties. Ice-fucking-cold-ocean has a nut-shriveling effect which I was certain my dad was not looking forward to.

Just then I could see sand shooting off the left outboard wheel, the brakes coming on hard (finally), and that sent the plane into a ground loop to the right, toward the water, but the left wing tilted down so hard it impacted into the sand. The effect of all the skidding, ground looping and heavy breaking was just a little better than going into the drink.

Frank and my father came to a stop just short of the final down slope heading to the breakers. In slow motion the plane tilted up onto its left tire and struck the left wingtip, threatening to flip altogether, but rocked back down on its three wheels. Not great, but it could have been so much worse. I asked myself: Now how far away from help are we? It was time for a walk around and some deep breaths.  Dad bailed out. Frank fired up a Camel and checked his panties for shit stains.

It was a challenging but perfectly land-able set up. Frank is a good pilot, with a full suite of skills. He did all the hard parts and then checked out. He cooked a perfect seven course meal, then took a nap in the recliner and, forgetting the oven was still on, burned the house down.

I had a few emotions of my own, selfish certainly, all surrounding our ability to continue the trip to Unimak and find a big caribou for my father.

Our first concern was if the Maul was flyable, or if it could be repaired.  If yes… could it be done on the beach, if yes…could we do it with the tools we had onboard. The actual damage was not severe.

No buckled landing gear, but the final two feet of the wing was well bent upwards as was the aileron. We jaw boned the “what ifs” of the landing, took turns gawking and pawing at the bent parts, and generally opining on how “this or that” amount of force “here or there” may cause some miracle of aeronautical metallurgy to occur.

Come back June 8 for the next installment, Part 3: Bent wing and dead walrus, then onward to Cold Bay — on a wing and a prayer.

[Read Chapter 1, Part 1: A caribou hunt with my father, Unimak Island, 2004]

Find this book at Barnes & Noble, Todd Communications, Title Wave Books, Once in a Blue Moose, and Amazon.

My father’s war: Clubbed feet and Liberty Ships

Suzanne Downing
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My father’s war: Clubbed feet and Liberty Ships

The Southeastern Shipyards in Savannah at the height of the Liberty Ship building enterprise.

By ART CHANCE
SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR

My father was born in rural Georgia in 1920 to a farmer and a teacher. He was born with a congenital deformity called “clubbed feet,” which was a sentence to a life as a cripple and likely dependency.

Somehow my grandparents made contact with the newly established Shriner’s Hospital in Atlanta and arranged to have corrective surgery for him. I still give the Shriners Hospital money every year.

In the 1920s, any surgery was exceedingly dangerous due to infection risks. The first widely used antibiotic, penicillin, was not invented until 1928 and didn’t see wide use until World War II.

An infection from a surgical procedure could lead to gangrene, sepsis, and a lingering, miserable death.

I have some of my great-great uncle’s letters home as he lay dying of gangrene from a wound from a Yankee musket ball in his ankle; was remarkably stoic, but it is a tough read. I can barely imagine the fear my grandparents held as they approached this surgery on their son.

Even today, clubbed feet occur in about 1 in 1,000 births and in spite of modern medicine, correction is not always completely successful and requires years of aftercare.

In my youth we still had a set of the heavy steel braces that my father wore for years. In modern days, rural America, and especially the rural South, is a tough place to have any sort of weakness; I can hardly imagine what a little boy on crutches and wearing braces went through.

I grew up there in the 1950s and 1960s and what today is excoriated as horrendous bullying, we thought of as play; “what doesn’t kill you makes you strong.”   Dad was smart and had educated, loving parents and he made it through high school and on to a couple of years of college before the war came along.

His partially corrected physical deformity made him unfit for military service; for those who remember draft exemptions, he had a “4-F” deferment, but he could work and he was smart.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration spread war production all over the country, for both political and strategic reasons.

The War Production Board established a shipyard in Savannah, G.a, one of many to build what became the standard U.S. freight transport, the Liberty Ship. The War Labor Board worked with the Selective Service System (the Draft Boards) to allocate labor and tailor draft exemptions for strategically important skilled trades.

(For my Alaska friends, a side note: The Alaska-Juneau Mine closed in 1944 not because it played out, but because the U.S. determined that gold was no longer a strategic material and they cancelled the draft deferments of the A-J’s workforce.)

By 1945, the U.S. had 12.5 million men in uniform, out of a population of about 130 million at the time, and the civilian workforce giving them provenance was a combination of draft exempt workers who had strategic trades, draft exempt workers who were for some reason unfit for service, and women, the famous “Rosie the Riveter.”

At the onset of World War II, U.S. Highway 80 was new, two lanes of concrete from San Diego, Calif. to Savannah, Ga, the first truly transcontinental federal highway.

My hometown has the singular distinction, perhaps its only distinction, of being the first place in the U.S. that two transcontinental highways intersected; U.S. 1 from Maine to Key West and U.S. 80 from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Savannah was 93 miles down U.S. 80.

My father made his way from there to the offices of the Southeastern Shipyard looking for a job. He might have seen the ocean and an ocean going vessel at that time in his life, but that was probably the extent of his knowledge of shipbuilding.

The workforce available to Southeastern Shipbuilding was draft-exempt skilled tradesmen, people who were exempt because they were for some reason unfit for service, and women. Most of the available workforce had never worked for wages, never punched a time clock, and had never seen an ocean-going vessel. In the rural South of the early 1940s, the world ran more by the phase of the moon than by the calendar or the clock.

[Read: Blockbuster Events: American Welding Society and Liberty Ships]

My father had a bit of algebra and trigonometry, so he got snapped up to be a part of a crew of gunlayers who installed the anti-aircraft and in some cases anti-ship guns on the Liberty Ships.

They built a shipyard from scratch and then built 88 Liberty Ships and 20-odd auxiliary vessels between 1942 and 1945.  Eight of the vessels my father worked on were in the invasion fleet on D-day.

I used to teach Introductory Labor Relations to State supervisors. After the movie  “Saving Private Ryan” came out, I started the class with reminding the participants of the scene on the day after the invasion as the sea is covered with ships from horizon to horizon, the sky is filled with airplanes, and the beaches and countryside are covered with men, vehicles, and materiel.

Then I reminded them that the only things in that panoramic scene at the beginning of the movie that existed on Dec. 7, 1941, were two battleships in the bombardment fleet and the men themselves, most of whom were in high school on Dec. 7, the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. Everything else off the coast of Normandy had been built between Pearl Harbor Day and D-Day.

I have a rather dark attitude towards today’s culture and politics, but I take comfort in the fact that one of the late 1930s classes at University of Oxford firmly resolved that they would “never fight for King nor Country.”

Many of those men became the few to which so many owed so much.

For those who’d like to explore this more, I heartily recommend Tony Cope’s “Swing Shift,” the story of the Southeastern Shipyard.

Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon.

Alaska Life hack: Iditarod Air Force seeking pilots

Suzanne Downing
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Alaska Life hack: Iditarod Air Force seeking pilots

The storied Iditarod Air Force is aging, and in need of new blood.

A crucial part of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, the pilots take supplies out to locations along the trail every March for the mushers on the way to Nome.

They take dog food, straw, and other items out to places like Ophir, Cripple, and Eagle Island, and bring tired-out dogs and spent supplies back to Anchorage.

They fly on wheels and sometimes on skis, and are compensated for gas and oil and for minor maintenance. And they get to be part of something that is uniquely Alaskan. Without them, there is no race.

The pilots are talented, well-experienced in Bush Alaska, said Bert Hanson, director of operations for the Iditarod Air Force, but the organization is down about 10 pilots for next year, and with a commercial pilot shortage, it’s been tough recruiting new people. Over half of the current Iditarod Air Force is over 60 years old.

Bert Hanson, Iditarod Air Force / Jeff Schultz photo

Hanson just completed his 35th year with the Iditarod Air Force. He also ran the race in 1990 and 1993. He’s devoted to the race and it’s up to him to recruit new team members.

At 7 pm on Friday, June 7 at the Aviators Forum at the Aviator Hotel in Anchorage, he’ll be presenting a program on the need to recruit a new generation into the Iditarod Air Force, and what is involved. The hotel is located at the corner of 4th Avenue and C Street, (with a parking lot behind it on 3rd Avenue.)

In addition to Hanson, participants will hear from Dr. Bill Mayer, one of the most senior aviators on the team, who has flown with the Iditarod Air Force since 1990, and Scott Ivany, with the team since 2010. The panel will answer questions from pilots about how they can become a member. The Aviators Forum is a regular event presented by the Alaska Aviators Resource.

Jeff Schultz, the official photographer of the Iditarod, has sent a slide deck of photos to illustrate the work of the Iditarod Air Force; Schultz has covered nearly 40 years of the race and has an impressive catalog of images.

The 2020 Iditarod starts on March 7 — just 275 days away.

Young woman dies; execution-style killing by 16-year-old, police say

Suzanne Downing
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Young woman dies; execution-style killing by 16-year-old, police say

ANOTHER MURDER IN THE PARK SYSTEM

Cynthia Hoffman was reported missing by a family member on Monday. The family member said that the 19-year-old had been seen by a friend at Polar Bear Park, possibly on Sunday at 4 pm. She was in blue jeans, a hoodie, and tennis shoes.

That turned out to be partially true. Detectives now believe the family was given false information about Hoffman’s whereabouts and that she was killed — shot in the back of the head after being bound with duct tape.

Kayden McIntosh, age 16, faces multiple charges, including Murder 1.

The preliminary investigation found that the victim, her friend, who is an adult female, and a juvenile male went to Thunderbird Falls trail on Sunday.

The three walked down to the river bank where the Hoffman was bound with duct tape by the female and male. At some point, an altercation took place. McIntosh allegedly shot the Hoffman in the back of the head and pushed her into the river.

Then he and the woman took off, driving to Polar Bear Park with Hoffman’s belongings and sending text messages to the girl’s family members via her phone, stating they dropped her off at the park.

The family members used that information to file a missing person’s report the next day. McIntosh and the woman then drove to Lions Park in Mountain View and burned the victim’s belongings.

On Monday, officers contacted a family member of the adult female who provided information that the victim may have been shot and pushed into the water. She didn’t have a location or any other details.

She said the adult female told her this information and hasn’t seen her since. Meanwhile, other officers continued to investigate the Polar Bear Park circumstances with the victim’s family believing it was true.

Tuesday, detectives located the adult female and McIntosh and questioned them. That’s when detectives discovered the fake story. Officers went to Thunderbird Falls trail and discovered Hoffman’s body.

This story will be updated.

Chester Creek shooting suspect is 12 years old

Suzanne Downing
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Chester Creek shooting suspect is 12 years old

VICTIM IDENTIFIED

The person who shot two teens near Chester Creek Trail on Sunday, killing one of them and badly wounding the other, is just 12 years old, police say. Detectives have arrested him and he’s now housed at  McLaughlin Youth Center in Anchorage. Charges have been forwarded to the Division of Juvenile Justice.

The person-of-interest, LaShawna Nettles, 45, was questioned by detectives and released.

The slain teenager has been identified as Thomas Williams, age 18.

[Read: Police seek this woman in connection with trail shooting]

[Read: Victim was 18; shooter still at large]

[Read: Another urban trail shooting, this time deadly]

 

 

MRAK Almanac: Dunleavy to hold PFD ‘Rally in the Valley’

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Thank you, 1st Strike (Click here for more info on this equipment auction).

By KOBE RIZK

The MRAK Almanac is your place for political, cultural, and civic events, places where you’ll meet political leaders or, if you are interested in getting to know your state, these are great places to meet conservative- and moderate-leaning Alaskans.

Denali Field Report: As of Monday, 141 successful summits of Denali have been made this season. Out of 306 completed climbs, that’s a summit percentage of 46 percent— not too shabby, and an impressive double of last week’s success rate of 23 percent. Weather is holding for now, but the Denali climbing season should be wrapping up by month’s end.

6/4-6/6: The U.S. Missile Defense Agency will hold public hearings regarding their proposal to significantly expand restricted airspace surrounding Clear Air Force Station (located approximately hallway between Nenana and Healy). Visit this link for meeting locations and information.

6/5: The National Veterans Golden Age Games begin in Anchorage. Open to all veterans aged 55 and older, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. More info here.

6/5: Guided walking tour of the Geophysical Institute located on the UAF campus in Fairbanks. Free to attend, begins at 1 pm in the building lobby. More info here.

6/5: Anchorage Alliance for Violence Prevention full coalition meeting in Anchorage. Set to vote on new bylaws and hear updates from partnering agencies. More info at this link.

6/5: Opening Day for the Mat-Su Miners baseball team, facing off against the Eagle River/Chugiak Chinooks. First pitch is at 7 pm at the Palmer fields. Tickets are $4.

6/5: Annual Membership Meeting of the Mat-Su Telephone Association at the state fairgrounds in Palmer. Two new directors will be elected. Further information at this link.

6/5: The U.S. Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee (chaired by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski) will meet in Washington, D.C. to consider the nomination Robert Wallace to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife. The hearing will be broadcast live, more info here.

6/6: Governor Mike Dunleavy will hold a Restore the PFD Rally at Everett’s in Wasilla. All are welcome to attend and show their support for a full PDF. Also a great place to discuss the issue for those who may disagree. Begins at 5:30 pm. Facebook link here.

6/6: The Ketchikan City Council will hold a regular meeting beginning at 7 pm. Meetings of the Council take place on the first and third Thursdays of each month at City Hall. More details and agenda packet here.

6/6: Regular meeting of the Kenai City Council. Will gavel in at 6 pm. More info here.

6/6: The Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA) will hold a Tariff Action Meeting in Juneau at 1:30 pm. Read more here.

6/6: Guided tour of Poker Flats Research Range northeast of Fairbanks. Come see the range’s state of the art atmospheric research facilities and meet the scientists who run them. Facebook event here.

6/6: Vietnam Veteran’s Panel at the Alaska Veterans Museum. A time to share reflections and foster discussions between those who served in Vietnam. Open to veterans, families, and the general public. More details here.

6/6: The UA Board of Regents will meet in Fairbanks to discuss their FY20 capital and operating budgets, as well as hear an update from UA President Johnsen. Public testimony will be heard starting at 8:15 am. More info here.

6/6: Special Meeting of the Bethel City Council to discuss the proposed budget. Begins at 6 pm. Details here.

6/6: The Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) will hold a free training session for potential candidates in Anchorage. If you would like to participate remotely, there is also an ability to do that. More info on the APOC website here.

6/6: VA services information event in Anchorage at the Egan Convention Center. All veterans are welcome and VA representatives will be on site to answer questions and review claims. More info here.

6/6: Alaska Bikers Advocating Training & Education board meeting in Anchorage. Details here.

6/7: The Interior Alaska GOP will host their weekly luncheon at Denny’s in Fairbanks beginning at 11:30 am. The guest will be Fairbanks advertising consultant Steve Neumuth speaking about “The Art of Campaigning”. All are welcome.

6/7: Deadline to submit photos to Senator Dan Sullivan’s Frontier in Focus photo contest. Send photos of your best Alaskan summer scenery to Senator Sullivan at [email protected].

Alaska History Archive:

June 5, 1957: Mike Stepovich took office as the ninth governor of the Alaska Territory, nominated by President Eisenhower. Born in Fairbanks in 1919, Stepovich was the territory’s first Alaska-born governor. During his tenure, he was a staunch advocate of Alaska statehood, which was successfully obtained in 1959. Stepovich was granted an honorary degree by the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2009, and passed away in 2014 at 94 years old.

June 6, 1912: Katmai’s Novarupta volcano erupted in a massive explosion of ash and liquid rock. Novarupta’s eruption in 1912 constituted the largest volcanic event of the 20th century, with over three cubic miles of magma being ejected out of the earth—thirty times what was released by Mt. St. Helens in 1989. Its ash cloud reached over twenty miles high, and the eruption lasted for over sixty hours. Novarupta’s eruption crafted the landscape today known as the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park.

In 1916, after stumbling upon the area destroyed by the 1912 eruption, explorer Robert Griggs wrote:

“The sight that flashed into view…was one of the most amazing visions ever beheld by mortal eye. The whole valley as far as the eye could reach was full of hundreds, no thousands–literally tens of thousands–of smokes curling up from its fissured floor…It was as though all the steam engines in the world, assembled together, had popped their safety valves at once and were letting off surplus steam in concert.” (Courtesy of the National Park Service)

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